Dr. Resler is a plant ecologist in the Geography Dept. at Virginia Tech. She has researched sites scattered around the U.S., including in the Dolly Sods area of West Virginia. Her talk for us will focus on research at Glacier National Park. Clusters of trees surrounded by a dissimilar type of vegetation are known as ‘tree islands’. Vegetation patterns at ecotones, including alpine treelines, are often comprised of tree islands.

In this talk she will examine the flora, biodiversity, and pattern–process relationships of two tree islands at alpine treelines in Glacier National Park, Montana, where trees are close to their environmental limits.